THE SCARLETS’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory has plagued them all season and it didn’t desert them against Munster.

A traumatic week at Stradey Park went from bad to worse as the Scarlets threw away a much-needed victory against this season’s Heineken Cup finalists.

Replacement fly-half Paul Warwick’s injury-time try and penalty clinched victory for a Munster side which didn’t really get out of second gear.

But Phil Davies’ shock departure as director of rugby earlier in the week cast a large shadow over events at Stradey Park yesterday. There had been many angry at the way Gareth Jenkins, the former Scarlets supremo, was sacked as Wales coach in a hotel car park in France after the 2007 World Cup. Now they have seen their beloved Scarlets do exactly the same.

Davies had endured a troubled few last months at Stradey, but he turned up to work last Wednesday with no idea his reign in charge was over.

For the Scarlets family it will be hard to justify such shabby treatment of one of their own.

They didn’t even, in the statement they released to confirm the departure of one of their favourite sons, have the good grace to thank him for his efforts. You do wonder if they have already taken all of the mirrors down in Stradey and packed them away for the move to the new stadium in Pemberton.

Davies may have played a part in his own downfall but he deserved better.

For the Scarlets it is just another chapter in their struggle in the professional era. It has been a tale of one crisis after another, be it financial or planning. Now just like any other rugby organisation they have gone and sacked a coach.

In fact, the Scarlets have ripped the mantle off the Dragons of being Welsh rugby’s most volatile and unstable region. They could find a crisis in a monastery and would certainly bring their own peculiar brand of “blame everybody else” mayhem.

Nigel Davies and Jenkins, the former Wales and Scarlets coaches, are being linked with a dramatic return to Stradey Park, but the future of caretaker coaches Paul Moriarty and Rob Jones is still in doubt. Moriarty, the forwards coach, is expected to stay but skills coach Jones is expected to leave. There is a vacancy for a skills coach at the Blues and the Wales and Lions scrum-half would appear to fit the bill at the Arms Park, with Rob Howley leaving the capital city region to take up a full-time post with Wales at the end of this campaign.

Munster showed the Scarlets the utmost respect by picking a side which will probably grace their Heineken Cup final clash against Toulouse down the road in Cardiff in a month’s time.

But the Munstermen treated this game, between two of the traditional heavyweights of European and Celtic rugby, as a training run. They have bigger fish to fry in a few weeks and it showed.

The home side couldn’t have made a worse start if they had tried after wing Ian Dowling was allowed to run half the length of the field to score an easy try for Munster after only three minutes.

The Scarlets, with skipper for the afternoon Stephen Jones running the show, did respond in emphatic fashion when Munster were down to 14 men with David Wallace in the sinbin.

Tries by wings Dafydd James and Matthew Watkins gave them a 20-5 lead at half-time.

In the second half, Munster clawed themselves back into the game in typical fashion.

A second try by Dowling and Warwick’s injury-time scores snatched an unlikely win, but it summed up a week to forget for the Scarlets.